The present paper provides an overview of articulatory complexity and articulatory difficulty in speech production, with a focus on their relevance to acquisition, sound change, and disordered speech. These constructs are important because structures described as articulatorily complex often show distinct production patterns: they may be acquired later, produced less accurately by speakers with speech disorders, or be more susceptible to diachronic change. However, understanding when articulatory complexity has an explanatory role in speech production requires not only assessing degrees of complexity but also determining when complex movements result in articulatory consequences. Researchers have operationalized articulatory complexity in several ways, but existing metrics do not always yield the same predictions. This paper reviews major approaches to establishing articulatory complexity and evaluates commonly used complexity scales. Particular attention is given to the limitations of these scales, especially when they are interpreted as measures of articulatory difficulty. The review concludes by examining experimental methods for assessing articulatory difficulty more directly. I argue that such methods provide a more reliable basis for establishing the relationship between complexity, difficulty, and observed production patterns.

Raising and control structures in Present-day English are surface-identical, yet differ in crucial ways both syntactically and semantically. We study the difference between the two from a diachronic and acquisitional perspective. Historically, raising has been argued to have emerged out of control (Higgins 1990). Similarly, raising has been found to be developmentally delayed compared to control (e.g. Wexler & Culicover 1987). We use quantitative methods to study the spread of TO-infinitives in child-directed and child naturalistic speech. In parallel, we study the same process in Early Modern English and what distributional properties may have facilitated the emergence of the distinction. Furthermore, we put to the test a learning model, the Tolerance Principle (Yang 2016), against the diachronic data. We argue that the emergence of raising historically was most likely a consequence of the broader rise of the requirement for an overt subject – an argument that has a clear parallel in recent research on the acquisition of raising using the same methods (Irani 2019).

Children produce conditional if-clauses later than other complex constructions, but the source of this delay is debated. On the conceptual complexity explanation, children acquire if-clauses later than other morphosyntactically similar constructions because they are cognitively more complex. On the pragmatic overlap explanation, children produce if-clauses infrequently because other, simpler constructions can convey similar conditional meanings. We tested the two explanations experimentally by eliciting hypothetical language in 3- to 6-year-old children and adults. Children and adults expressed hypotheticality through a variety of grammatical constructions, beyond if-clauses, in accordance with the pragmatic overlap explanation. Across age groups, if-clauses were not delayed compared to other similar constructions, against the conceptual complexity prediction. Still, the data showed important developmental differences: 3- and 4-year-old children rarely expressed conditional meanings, whereas 5- and 6-year-olds were adult-like. These findings suggest that expressing hypothetical thought develops substantially during the preschool years through interacting cognitive, pragmatic, and linguistic factors.

Many mergers and acquisitions (M&As) fail, and an emerging body of literature highlights the role of prejudice in derailing the M&A process. While prejudice is frequently observed in M&As, strategies to mitigate these biases remain underexplored. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study focuses on Chinese acquisitions in the UK and examines how managers from both the acquired and acquiring organizations navigate prejudice through emotional sensemaking. The findings demonstrate that emotional sensemaking plays a critical role in shaping the post-acquisition integration (PAI) process and its outcomes. Specifically, sensemaking supported by emotional intelligence facilitates the accommodation or reduction of prejudice, while emotionally unintelligent sensemaking tends to reinforce it. By focusing on the dynamic, interactive emotional exchanges between managers at the micro level, this study offers a fresh lens on the integration process beyond traditional strategic or structural explanations. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the understanding of micro-level emotional sensemaking in the PAI, emphasizing the dynamic, interactive nature of emotional sensemaking between acquirer and acquiree managers, and its impact on the integration process and outcomes.

In response to Law et al.’s (2025) target article on signed language change, I discuss two aspects of regularity in sound change: the role of phonemes and the contribution of iconicity. Drawing on work on sound change in spoken languages, I set out some arguments for why linguistics needs to take proper account of signed language change, in order to better understand language dynamics in general. I further argue that signed ~ spoken language dichotomies or arguments from exceptionalism are unlikely to be as helpful as robust hypothesis testing.

In this article we offer up a particular linguistic phenomenon, quantifier-variable binding in Kannada ditransitives, as a proving ground upon which competing claims about learnability can be evaluated with respect to the relative abstractness of children's grammatical knowledge. We first identify one aspect of syntactic representation that exhibits a range of syntactic, morphological, and semantic consequences both within and across languages, namely the hierarchical structure of ditransitive verb phrases (Barss & Lasnik 1986, Larson 1988, Harley 2002). Next we show that while the semantic consequences of this structure are parallel in English, Kannada, and Spanish, the word order and morphological reflexes of this structure diverge. Thus, although it is clear that the same structures are exhibited crosslinguistically, the evidence available to learners that would allow them to identify these structures is variable. We then turn to an examination of children learning Kannada, demonstrating that they have command of the relation between morphological form and semantic interpretation in ditransitives with respect to quantifier-variable binding. Finally, we offer a proposal on how a selective learning mechanism might succeed in identifying the appropriate structures in this domain despite the variability in surface expression.

This article offers a DE SE THEORY of person indexicals, wherein first- and second-person indexical pronouns indicate REFERENCE DE SE (also called SELF-ASCRIPTION). Long observed for first-person pronouns (Castañeda 1977, Kaplan 1977, Perry 1979, inter alia), self-ascription is extended here to second person as well. The person feature of a pronoun specifies the speech-act roles that must be played by the self-ascribers: the speakers (uttering a first-person pronoun), the addressees (interpreting a second-person pronoun), or both (for first-person inclusive). Other agents who are not among the designated self-ascribers for a given pronoun interpret the pronoun indirectly by inferring the self-ascriber's interpretation, a process requiring THEORY OF MIND, that is, the cognitive ability to impute mental states to others (Premack & Woodruff 1978). This de se theory is supported by convergent evidence from multiple domains: (i) It explains a typological universal: first- and second-person plurals always allow associative semantics (‘speaker(s) plus others’, 'addressee(s) plus others') rather than requiring regular plural semantics ('speakers only', ‘addressees only‘) (Greenberg 1988, Noyer 1992, Cysouw 2003, Bobaljik 2008). (ii) It belongs to a family of approaches that solve the problem of the essential indexical (Perry 1979). (iii) It correctly predicts observed patterns of indexical pronoun production and comprehension by two populations lacking a fully developed theory of mind: typically developing children in the stage before theory of mind has developed, and children with autism. (iv) It correctly predicts the interpretation of second-person pronouns in utterances with multiple addressees.

Citrus leprosis is a non-systemic disease caused by citrus leprosis virus (CiLV), which is classified as cytoplasmic (CiLV-C) or nuclear (CiLV-N) based on its replication site within host cells. Mite species in the genus Brevipalpus vector this virus. In Mexico, B. californicus and B. yothersi have been recorded in citrus orchards, with the latter species being most abundant and widely distributed. Despite extensive research, knowledge gaps remain regarding interactions between Brevipalpus and CiLV-C, the predominant virus type. We investigated the vector competence of both species, with a detailed analysis of density-dependent acquisition and transmission for B. yothersi. Virus acquisition was assessed using three densities (5, 10, or 15 adult females) for B. yothersi and a single desity (15 mites) for B. californicus. Virus detection and quantification were performed using a TaqMan probes targeting the viral movement protein gene. Transmission assays were conducted on Phaseolus vulgaris plants using viruliferous B. yothersi at all densities. B. californicus did not acquire the virus and was therefore excluded from transmission experiments. In contrast, B. yothersi successfully acquired the virus at all densities. While the proportion of viruliferous mites did not differ significantly among density treatments, viral load per mite was significantly higher at the lowest density. Virus transmission ocurred at all densities, with no significant differences in viral titres in inoculated plants. There results provide insights into density-related mite-virus interactions affecting CiLV-C transmission.

Language learners are often faced with a scenario where the data allow multiple generalizations, even though only one is actually correct. One promising solution to this problem is that children are equipped with helpful learning strategies that guide the types of generalizations made from the data. Two successful approaches in recent work for identifying these strategies have involved (i) expanding the set of informative data to include INDIRECT POSITIVE EVIDENCE, and (ii) using observable behavior as a target state for learning. We apply both of these ideas to the case study of English anaphoric one, using computationally modeled learners that assume one’s antecedent is the same syntactic category as one and form their generalizations based on realistic data. We demonstrate that a learner that is biased to include indirect positive evidence coming from other pronouns in English can generate eighteen-month-old looking-preference behavior. Interestingly, we find that the knowledge state responsible for this target behavior is a context- dependent representation for anaphoric one, rather than the adult representation, but this immature representation can suffice in many communicative contexts involving anaphoric one. More generally, these results suggest that children may be leveraging broader sets of data to make the syntactic generalizations leading to their observed behavior, rather than selectively restricting their input. We additionally discuss the components of the learning strategies capable of producing the observed behavior, including their possible origin and whether they may be useful for making other linguistic generalizations.

The mechanisms underlying linguistic change are well documented for adolescent and adult speech, but much less is known about how such change emerges in the childhood years. In this article we address this gap by conducting a real-time analysis of the acquisition of a rapidly expanding variable in young speakers, first in preschool and later in preadolescence. By tracking a variable undergoing change at two key stages of sociolinguistic development, transmission and incrementation, we observe directly the processes operating on individual and community grammars as children shift to the leading edge of change.

This article addresses a phenomenon of long-standing interest: the existence of child-specific phonological patterns that are not attested in adult language. We propose a new theoretical approach, termed the A(RTICULATORY)-MAP model, to account for the origin and elimination of child-specific phonological patterns. Due to the performance limitations imposed by structural and motor immaturity, children’s outputs differ from adult target forms in both systematic and sporadic ways. The computations of the child’s grammar are influenced by the distributional properties of motor-acoustic traces of previous productions, stored in episodic memory and indexed in the eponymous A-map. We propose that child phonological patterns are shaped by competition between two essential forces: the pressure to match adult productions of a given word (even if the attempt is likely to fail due to performance limitations), and the pressure to attempt a pronunciation that can be realized reliably (even if phonetically inaccurate). These forces are expressed in the grammar by two constraints that draw on the motor-acoustic detail stored in the A-map. These constraints are not child-specific, but remain present in the adult grammar, although their influence is greatly attenuated as a wide range of motor plans come to be realized with a similar degree of reliability. The A-map model thus not only offers an account of a problematic phenomenon in development, but also provides a mechanism to model motor-grammar interactions in adult speech, including in cases of acquired speech impairment.

Natural human languages often contain variation (sociolinguistic or Labovian variation) that is passed from one generation of speakers to the next, but studies of acquisition have largely ignored this, instead focusing on aspects of language that are more deterministic. Theories of acquisition, however, must be able to account for both. This article examines variation from the perspective of the statistical learning framework and explores features of variation that contribute to learnability. In particular, it explores whether conditioning variables (i.e. where the pattern of variation is slightly different in different contexts) lead to better learning of variation as compared to when there are no conditioning variables, despite the former being conceptually more difficult. Data from two experiments show that adult learners are fairly good at learning patterns of both conditioned and unconditioned variation, the latter result replicating earlier studies. Five-to-seven-year-old children, in contrast, had different learning outcomes for conditioned versus unconditioned variation, with fewer children regularizing or imposing deterministic patterns on the conditioned variation. However, the children who did not impose deterministic patterns did not necessarily acquire the variation patterns the adults did.